Consumer Cos Steady After Strong Sentiment Data -- Consumer Roundup

Shares of retailers and other consumer-services companies were flat after consumer-sentiment data boded well for Black Friday spending.

Friday is the traditional kick-off for the holiday-shopping season, and stores are already luring customers with early deals. The University of Michigan on Wednesday said its consumer-sentiment index was 98.5 in November, up from a preliminary reading of 97.8.

Bricks-and-mortar retailers were among the biggest laggards on the stock market for most of this year, but they have staged something of a comeback in recent weeks.

"Some of these retailers have reported good earnings," said Joe Kinahan, chief market strategist at TD Ameritrade. "When it's stocks left for dead like Abercrombie and Fitch, Gap and stuff like that, that's pretty darn impressive."

Procter & Gamble said it is continuing to review the official tally of the hotly contested proxy contest with activist Nelson Peltz but hasn't decided whether to formally challenge the results, which showed the company lost by a razor-thin margin.

-Rob Curran, rob.curran@dowjones.com

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 22, 2017 16:48 ET (21:48 GMT)